If Only She Had Said "Israel, Go to Hell"

Quit your whining.

On May 21, the day the Democratic National Committee's "autopsy." written by party strategist Paul Rivera, was released, Sophie Hurwitz of the left-wing Mother Jones noted that it was accompanied by a note from Committee chairperson Ken Martin reading

"For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word."

It is understandable that an unedited and unendorsed draft would include numerical and grammatical errors, as well as notes saying things like “No sourcing provided for this claim” and “Methodology appears internally inconsistent.”

The DNC didn't like it, its critics didn't like it, and even Rivera was lukewarm toward it. It is a mess. That doesn't matter because the report didn't matter. In early 2013, following the Republican Party's second straight loss to Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee commissioned an autopsy. It recommended increased sensitivity toward immigrants and minority groups generally. Then along came Donald J. Trump, and the rest is history.

Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones, though, was focused on a more sustantive ommission, in which

Amont the more than 50,000 words in the DNC's 192-page autopsy of why it lost the 2024 presidential election, here are a few that do not appear even once: Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Jewish, Muslim, foreign policy, protest, genocide.

Here are a few other words that do not appear even once: Hamas, Islamofascism, and October 7 slaughter, each of which, unlike "genocide," actually exists in the conflict. Nonetheless, Hurwitz continued

During the 2024 election cycle, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, often using US-supplied bombs. At every turn, when confronted by protesters asking her to do more to stop the slaughter, the party’s nominee, Kamala Harris, demurred. When Democrats outraged by the war asked that a single Palestinian speaker be allowed to speak onstage at the DNC—and endorse Harris in doing so—they were snubbed.

Yet, at that time, it was not insignificant that 

The second night of the Democratic National Convention was intensely Jewish: Along with Emhoff and Schumer directly discussing their Jewish identities, two other prominent Jewish elected officials — Bernie Sanders and J.B. Pritzker — took the stage, while the night opened with an invocation by Rabbi Sharon Brous. Jewish heritage, inclusion in America and the fight against antisemitism all got prime-time attention.

But just one of the politicians alluded to Israel, in an anguished reference to the war it is waging against Hamas in Gaza. Absent altogether were references to the unshakeable U.S.-Israel alliance, once a staple of Democratic political conventions, and an orthodoxy that permeated last month’s Republican convention in Milwaukee.

Even Schumer, the New York Democratic senator who has long played on the Hebrew origins of his name, “shomer,” to say he sees himself as a guardian of Israel, left the country entirely out of his speech....

The sole mention of the hostages during prime time came from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermonter who is the unofficial leader of the progressives and among Israel’s harshest critics.

“We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire,” Sanders said, pausing after the first clause to allow for cheers that were some of the loudest of the evening.

No one at the convention spoke against a ceasefire, which would have been (and ultimately was) needed to "bring home the hostages".  Sanders understood that, and so did the bloc of  "Uncommitted" delegates eager to bring on a Palestinian speaker to speak of the suffering of Gazans while ignoring the events of 10/7/23.

It became more obvious two nights later when the parents of a young Jewish Israeli man spoke from the podium. There

Both of the couple called for a deal to release the hostages and agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, drawing the loudest applause of their speeches. Their appearance came at a time when negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a deal are again faltering, as they have in successive rounds of talks over the past several months. They said both Republicans and Democrats have sought to help them, and thanked President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s nominee, for working “tirelessly” for a deal.

“In a competition of pain, there are no winners,” Jon Polin said. “In an inflamed Middle East, we know the one thing that can most immediately release pressure and bring calm to the entire region: a deal that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza. The time is now.”

The crowd fell into silence as the couple strode onto the stage. Delegates stood up, including those scattered throughout wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with the Palestinians. A man sporting a Hebrew Harris-Walz button started a “Bring them home” chant, and soon the whole room picked it up.

It wasn't "win the war" or "get them back".  It was "bring them home," which anyone paying any attention whatsoever knew meant "Israel, make a deal, now"! Yet, Hurwitz assumes that all one-issue Gaza voters were ones opposed to Israel's actions defending itself. She wrote

According to polling by the IMEU, 29 percent of former Biden voters who did not choose Harris—equivalent to roughly 122,380 votes across six swing states—were influenced by Gaza. There were of course other factors: broad economic dissatisfaction, as well as a late-game candidate switch, among them—but to omit mention of Gaza is avoidant at best and dishonest at worst.

How many voters would have shunned Harris-Walz at the polls or switched to Donald Trump had the Vice President succumbed to anti-Israel/pro-Palestine sentiment is, unsurprisingly, ignored. It's impossible to determine, though it's extraordinarily unlike that Harris would have scraped together 270 electoral votes whatever position she had taken. The Democrat lost not only Michigan, with a tremendous number of Muslim voters, but also Pennsylvania, in which Muslim voters are outnumbered by Jewish voters.

There are many reasons, some of them noted by Rivera and others not, that the Democratic Party lost the last presidential election. With such a multitude, I would be unable to argue with any certainty that the major factor was the candidate herself, whose selection as V.P. nominee in 2020 I abhorred. Neither can the anti-Israel crowd legitimately argue that Kamala Harris' failure to break with President Biden's policy and condemn Israel in 2024 was the primary factor in her defeat. 

The "autopsy" brings us no closer to  understanding why Donald Trump was (re-) elected. However, it's always instructive to be reminded of the hostility born of narrowmindness of the All Hail Palestine! gang members. Perhaps they also can enlighten us as to how Iranians and other Muslims of the Middle East have benefitted as a result of Trump's victory over the candidate they believe was so unfair to Palestinians during the Democratic National Convention. 

 

Share |

As Carville Would Put It, "It Was the Candidate, Stupid"

There have been dozens of reasons asserted to explain the descent of the national Democratic Party the last several years. One rarely if ever mentioned, but hinted at in this CNN article of 1/21/21, is

Former South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jaime Harrison has officially been elected the next chair of the Democratic National Committee, winning the organization’s election after President Joe Biden selected him for the top political job.

Harrison, who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2020, will now be asked to guide the top committee at a time when Democrats have control of all three key bodies in Washington, the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

As with everyone else, I didn't recognize the impact this would have on the national party. And unlike almost everyone aside from Chris Cillizza, I do know now.

She built a Presidential campaign from scratch, chose a VP in two weeks, and pulled off one of the most successful Democratic convention in decades in under a month.

She crushed an opponent who has stood on more presidential debate stages than anyone in history. She energized… https://t.co/e3PQLrgkPQ

— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) September 24, 2025

I haven't read Cillizza's full response to Harrison's tweet, for which a subscription to the journalist's Substack is necessary. Nonetheless, one thing is clear: Cillizza believes Kamala Harris was a bad candidate and Jaime Harrison believes she was not, or at least pretends to believe that.

It's not that Harrison is wrong about everything. He's right about several things, ironically thereby proving Cillizza's theory and disproving his own.

The then-Vice President did "pull off" an extremely successful convention.  She "crushed an opponent"  in debate, "energized an electorate," and "raised a billion dollars in just 107 days."  Further, she was an extremely well-qualified candidate in that she possessed an excellent resume: top law enforcement official in a big city, top law enforcement officer in our largest state, a US Senator representing our largest state, and Vice-President of the USA.

Taken as a whole, that is extremely impressive. 

Nevertheless, those were elements of her campaign- the fund-raising: well-executed, exciting rallies; tremendous debate performance. None of those go to whom Kamala Harris is.

She did have only 107 days, as the title of her new, controversial memoirs,"107 Days," not so subtly remind us. Those were 15-16 weeks to persuade voters that they should not return to office an individual who had been defeated for re-election four years earlier by someone generally believed no longer to have the full capacity (whether cognitive or physical) to run the country for another four years. 

The former Senator was handed a gift. She did not have to run a gauntlet of primaries, in which she would have been tempted to take stands and make statements endearing her to a Democratic primary electorate but which would have been fodder for the opposing party in a general election.

Moreover, there is no assurance that Harris would have won the nomination if contested in that traditional manner. She entered the presidential race in 2019 and could not advance even to the first primary or convention. The Californian certainly tried hard enough, even winning plaudits from the political crowd for describing rival candidate Joe Biden as a racist without branding him as a "racist." Slick.

   

 

That strategic tour de force unsurprisingly brought a lot of money into her campaign coffers, though upon further review, we learned that she herself had expressed a similar view of mandatory school busing. It was a masterful performance by Harris, though eventually registered Democrats recognized who she was and she was done.

Done, but not finished. Persuaded by US Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who was in Democratic House leadership and a friend of former Vice President Biden, to select a black woman as his running mate, the nominee selected Ms. Harris. Jill Biden was reportedly incensed by Harris' attack in debate upon her husband and therefore opposed her husband's decision, proving that sometimes, mother does  know best.

The vice presidential nominee had minimal or no effect upon the presidential race in 2020.  President Biden thereafter put her in charge of border policy, enabling critics to label her "czar." Her ineptitude and bad presidential policy- the latter probably a greater factor- led to a remarkable upsurge in illegal border crossings and requests there for asylum, which played a major role in November 2024. 

After Biden dropped out of that race, Harris became the default Democratic presidential nominee. She already was vice president, thus arguably heir apparent, and she is black. Yet, well before then, as of early September of 2023, there was talk about the possibility of the Biden-Harris ticket being challenged for the 2024 nomination. However, according to this little-noticed, yet extremely significant article from NBC News at the time, "longtime Democratic strategist" Karen Finney stated

When you had people who were trying to test the waters, the party rose up and made it clear to those individuals- who were mostly white men- that to disrespect the vice president would not be well received by women and people of color within the party. They got a little bit of a smack in the face.

The message was- and is- clear: that irrespective of any other factors, Kamala Harris had to be on the ticket for reasons (demographic) beyond her, or anyone's control. She was entitled to it, whether she would be an effective successor as President to Joe Biden, a net benefit in the campaign, or anything else.

Fortunately for her- vice president, after all- she was able to escape the scrutiny of the media, rival candidates, and others inevitable during a primary campaign. And even then, she may have lost. In the video below, a well-meaning Wisconsin reader maintains (at 2:40) "it was a very short amount of time for the Party to get its act together before the election and had President Biden decided not to run sooner, I think that Vice President Harris would have had a better chance." 

It (with her help) did get its act together, she was polling better than Trump, and then the voters got to know her better. So, no.

 

We cannot know how Kamala Harris would have fared in a primary race. However, we all saw her fail on ABC's The View, CBS' 60 Minutes, and with Dana Bash on CNN. She doesn't think well on her feet, an attribute common to many of us who don't run for public office.

That wasn't her campaign; that was her. She is weak in some formats, is substandard as a retail politician, and seems to feel entitled. A sense of entitlement is common in politicians but unlike most of them, Harris is unable to hide it.

Little of that seems to be pertinent to Jaime Harrison. Oh, but it is. In the last sentence of his response to Chris Cillizza, the ex-DNC chairman asks rhetorically "what the hell have you done to sit in judgement of our MVP?"

Besides being a citizen of the USA, in which the First Amendment still applies, Cillizza is a veteran journalist, and relatively objective one.  He is entitled (being entitled is not bad; having a sense of entitlement is) to his own opinion, an educated one, which often is right, less frequently, wrong. 

Harrison's question is bizarre for another reason: he refers to Harris as "our MVP."  "MVP" stands for Most Valuable Player. Say what you will about Harris, who would have been an infinitely better President than has Donald Trump. She lost an election, a winnable one, and that hardly qualifies her as an MVP for the Party which Jaime Harrison was appointed to strengthen. There is only one major political party which now supports freedom of speech, and that commitment may flourish a little more with him no longer its leader.

Share |

The Magic, Harmless Bullet

In a rare moment, Donald Trump slips up and tells the truth, in the process revealing two things about himself. He tells Will Cain 

And there was- people were screaming "get down, get down. The whole thing was just crazy. And it's hard to believe a year is up and uh, here we are and a lot of things have happened since then, including the presidency. So I have an obligation to do a good job, I fee. I was really saved. I was really saved by (points upward) somebody really special. 

Since he was wounded by shrapnel (oh, I mean, his ear hit by a bullet) a year ago, Trump has peppered his remarks with mention of God, hoping to convince Americans that he believes in said entity. He has innumerable conservatives on social media convinced and on June 21, he outdid himself in a four minute address following the bombing attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. He remarked at one point  "I want to just thank everybody, in particular, God. I want to just say we love you God, and we love our great military, protect them. God bless the Middle East, God bless Israel, and God bless America."

One doesn't have to have a Master of Divinity to have read John 4:24a, which states definitively "God is spirit." One fairly typical commentary explains

First—and this is important—we know what spirit is not, and that is physical. Anything physical (made of matter) is characterized by limitations. As an example, consider human beings. We each have a beginning, a limit. We all die, another limit. We occupy a certain space in the universe, also a limit. We live in the present, not the future. This is, again, a limit.

But God has no limits....

God is not somebody because God is not a person. This perspective is not limited to theologians but is basic to an understanding of the Old Testament and of the New Testament.  Donald Trump will not use only people, but also God, for political gain.

God is "really special," in the manner of a young man telling a young woman "you're really special," which often the young woman finds insincere. Nonetheless, that is not the more significant portion of Trump's remark to Cain. The President added

The people that are shooters- not so much, but people that, who are shooters, say "it's almost impossible that that was a miss". And it was a hit (pointing to his ear) but it was a miss.

President @realdonaldtrump was saved in Butler, PA by the Grace of God: “I was really saved by somebody very special…. people that are shooters say it is almost impossible that was a miss." pic.twitter.com/rugD5RODCh

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 11, 2025

Good save, man! But we know what you said. No one says about anything "it's almost impossible that that was a miss" unless it was a miss. Realizing he had let the cat out of the bag, Trump promptly contradicted himself by stating "it was a hit but it was a miss."

He didn't explain how it was a "hit" because it was not. After allegedly being struck by a bullet, Trump wrestled Secret Service agents to get back onto his feet,  requested his shoes, and then

forced his right fist through a tangle of agents' arms. He raised it high into the air before pumping his fist. "Fight" he mouthed to the crowd and cameras as he pumped his arm sharply three times, in a sign of undeniable defiance and assurance that he was OK. The gesture sent the crowd cheering, with many rising to their feet.

Yet, no medical report ever has been released. It was an actual act of defiance, put on by an accomplished, professional actor. If the candidate were in fact hit by a billet, he is Superman, and not the fictional character but the real deal.

As Michael Kinsley once noted, "a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth." It is "a mistake whereby a politician inadvertently says something truthful which they had not meant to reveal." As FBI director, Christopher Wray was not technically a politician but committed a Kinsley gaffe when on July 24, 2024, eleven days after the assassination attempt, he

indicated there might be more the American public did not know about the injury. Wray suggested in congressional testimony that the wound may have been caused by shrapnel, while Trump and his former White House physician had said it was caused by a bullet.

Wray remembered that he wanted to leave the Bureau on his own terms rather than be fired by an someone who could be President again and is known for holding grudges. However, his agency on July 26 claimed "what struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject's rifle."

O.K., but amazed that it was "a miss" in Butler, Pa., Donald Trump begs to differ. 

The President was uncharacteristically sloppy when he let in on the secret. But it really presented no danger to his image as the tough guy who can thrust aside a deadly bullet. When Christopher Wray suggested Trump's wound may have been caused by shrapnel, he probably hoped that the media or Democratic politicians would pick up on the hint and not accept the official, Trump-approved version.

He was mistaken, And though the President, a year later, was uncharacteristically sloppy when he let us in on the secret, he really needed not fear for his image as the tough guy who can thrust aside a deadly bullet. He banked on what he got.

It would be a media unwilling to probe where it must in a free society. It was a media which during the last campaign was unwilling to ask Trump: if his call for terminating the Constitution included freedom of religion; if his wife, born in Yugoslavia (now Slovenia), is one of the immigrants who "poison the blood of our country"; or whether he would he'd provide a document proving he was shot on July 13, 2025. It's almost as if the media are afraid of the answer they would get.

And now that the President has let his guard down and virtually admitted that no bullet hit him a year ago, silence still will reign. Donald J. Trump is good for business, and the bottom line is the bottom line.

Share |

The Comforting Choice of Blaming Biden

Former President Joe Biden is right, wrong, and right, respectively:

Former President Joe Biden said in a new interview that the timing of his pullout from the 2024 election wouldn’t have made a difference, suggesting that Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump was inevitable. (Watch the video below.)

“Should you have withdrawn earlier?” the BBC’s Nick Robinson asked in the interview, shared Wednesday.

“I don’t think it would’ve mattered,” Biden replied. “We left at a time when we had a good candidate. She was fully funded.”

Chris Cillizza disagrees with Biden's first claim, that it would have not mattered); presumably agrees with the second that "we had a good candidate", and ignores the third point, that "she was fully funded." He argues (at 4:39 of the video below)

There was no primary. Biden gets out Harris gets in, that's it. She gets zero actual votes from Democrats to be the Democratic nominee for President. It just got handed off to her. I think that rankled a lot of voters, including a lot of Democrats. 

I think- let's imagine Biden gets out a year before. Let's imagine he gets out in June- July 21, 2023. We had a robust primary process at that point. Kamala Harris is in. There probably are other people who run. She might still wind up being the nominee. But it seems to me that that process would have yielded someone who could say "I won this. I campaigned for this and I won the nomination as opposed to it was handed to me by a guy who is not popular and I'm now going to have to own that guy and his record for the entire campaign."

So, all of those things plus the fact that again, an intangible, but it's really hard to set up a presidential campaign on July 21, July 22, whenever Kamala Harris started and try to win an election on November 5, right?  It's just a massive undertaking and to do it that late, you are trying to do everything while sprinting and that's never easy. So to me, it's just Joe Biden in a state of denial.

Yet, in early morning on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, Andrew Feinberg of The Independent appeared to capture the zeitgeist, and did capture the vibe, of the campaign when he wrote

Harris, who just a few weeks ago appeared to have run out of the momentum she’d quickly gathered after President Joe Biden ceded the Democratic ticket to her this past July, is surging thanks to a series of late-game missteps by Trump and his allies. Those missteps include the disastrous decision to include a comedian who called Puerto Rico an “island of floating garbage” in the lineup at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally late last month.

On Saturday, renowned pollster Ann Selzer released her annual survey of Iowa voters which showed Harris with a three-point lead, 47 per cent to 44 per cent, in the Hawkeye State based on an incredibly strong showing with female voters. Harris, who’d trailed Trump by a four-point margin among Iowans in September, had also inherited a whopping 18-point deficit when she took over the Democratic nomination from Biden.

Another national poll released by NPR and Marist College on Monday showed Harris garnering support from 51 per cent of respondents, compared with Trump’s 47 per cent — a lead greater than the survey’s 3.5-point margin of error. And the final NBC News poll of the election cycle showed Trump hemorrhaging support from Black and Latino voters, while Harris was shown to be garnering support from 87 per cent of Black voters.

The Harris campaign appears to have met the moment and is finishing strongly with what it describes as the largest coordinated get-out-the-vote event in history on Monday.

The campaign is running simultaneous events across all seven battleground states, including rallies featuring Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz, plus programming tying the events in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin together as part of a national livestream program.

Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters on a call on Monday afternoon that the coordinated event is intended to “capture the grassroots enthusiasm that we are seeing everywhere, to focus on mobilizing our voters heading into Election Day tomorrow”.

“Tomorrow, we’ll have elected officials and performers and speakers that really reach such a wide network across all social media platforms, helping to make sure that our message is breaking through in these final hours to voters that maybe are harder to reach or less engaged. These events will serve as a massive mobilization and volunteer engagement opportunity,” she said.

Privately, Democratic sources who spoke to The Independent are projecting confidence, with one swing-state party chair noting what they described as “a serious crossover vote among Republicans” and “explosive” turnout in early voting among key constituencies, including Latinos.

Trump’s response to a Biden gaffe in which the president appeared to call the ex-president’s supporters “garbage” in return seemed to have only prolonged the news cycle stemming from Hinchcliffe’s racist diatribe. His decision to stage a photo op with a garbage truck looks to have failed to shift the focus back to Biden and instead reminded Latino voters of what had touched off the controversy to begin with.

And while the Trump campaign had hoped to make hay out of an Associated Press report revealing that the White House communications team had tried to doctor the official transcript of Biden’s remarks to make it look as if he hadn’t said what he’d said, Trump stepped on his own campaign’s messaging over the weekend with a series of bizarre and unhinged appearances. At one rally, he even appeared to fellate a malfunctioning microphone.

One Democratic operative suggested that the stars had aligned to bring about the ex-president’s collapse at the exact time Harris has been surging.

“Aaron Sorkin couldn’t have written it better,” they said.

Meanwhile, Trump and running mate JD Vance closed out their electioneering with a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s the same place where Trump closed out his victorious 2016 run against Hillary Clinton, and it’s where Trump ended his re-election race against Biden four years later.

Not only is Michigan a key swing state — and Grand Rapids a historically strong Republican area — but Trump is notoriously superstitious and has insisted on closing out both of his post-2016 campaigns there for no reason but vibes, even as he was forced to open his day in North Carolina, a reliable GOP stronghold that he might well lose to Harris.

At Trump’s appearances this past weekend, the arenas he visited looked noticeably emptier and the candidate himself looked lost at times, vacillating between bewilderment and menace. He suggested that an assassination attempt against him would need to shoot through a packed media contingent to have a chance at hitting him, in one particularly concerning moment.

Harris "quickly gathered" momentum "after Joe Biden ceded the Democratic ticket to her this past July. While Democrats were "projecting confidence," Trump "stepped on his own campaign's messaging.... with a series of bizarre and unhinged appearances." Harris was "surging" and combined with "the largest coordinated get-out-the-vote event in history," one Democratic operative boasted "Aaron Sorkin couldn't have written it better."

Democrats were well-funded, organized, disciplined, and confident while the Trump campaign was well-funded and not much else. Nonetheless, Cillizza would maintain

So, all of those things plus the fact that again, an intangible, but it's really hard to set up a presidential campaign on July 21, July 22, whenever Kamala Harris started and try to win an election on November 5.  Right?  It's just a massive undertaking and to do it that late, you are trying to do everything while sprinting and that's never easy. 

It may have been hard but it was done, and impressively, as everyone recognized at the time.. Perhaps the Democratic Party may have won the presidential election if Joe Biden had dropped out a year earlier. However, that would have given the GOP time than it eventually had to batter whomever the presumptive Democratic nominee would have been. 

It would have been a better situation for the party's nominee only if the process had yielded someone other than Kamala Harris. That is far from certain, though, and for reason(s) unrelated to the quality of the candidate. In September of 2023- over a year before the November, 2024 election- three NBC reporters noted

A quirk of the 2024 presidential cycle is the chasm that’s emerged between the party establishment and rank-and-file voters. For Democrats, more than half don't want to see Biden run again, an April NBC News poll found.

But those rank-and-file voters counted for little compared to party insiders who were intimidated. The reporters added

Biden allies have not been shy about getting the word out that it would be self-defeating for ambitious white male candidates like Newsom to try to snatch the nomination away from Biden and Kamala Harris, who made history as the first woman and person of color to become vice president….

“When you had people who were trying to test the waters” for a presidential bid, “the party rose up and made it clear to those individuals — who were mostly white men — that to disrespect the vice president would not be well received by women and people of color within the party,” said Karen Finney, a longtime Democratic strategist. “They got a little bit of a smack in the face.”

So let's be clear in the manner which can be understood by Cillizza and the other pundits chiming in on the failure to capitalize on the unpopularity of Donald Trump. The Democrats did not lose the White House because Kamala Harris did not have enough time. She came out surging and ran an effective campaign until individuals realized they were being asked to vote for, well, Kamala Harris, an extremely qualified, unlikable person.

The party establishment wanted to anoint her in part in part because she was the sitting vice-president, hence the closest thing to a default candidate. However, the times did not call for nominating someone because it would be easy but for the individual most likely to win. Harris had flamed out in her initial run for the presidency, as a candidate for the nomination in the 2020 cycle, and there was great suspicion that she would not turn out to be a strong candidate.

That turned out to be the case but not for the reason Cillizza claims. Assuming Feinberg of The Independent was  not making things up, Harris ran a nearly flawless campaign, one which most people admired at the time, and which was better than could have been expected.

Nonetheless, she lost the general election and the words of Karen Finney, an admirer of Harris, gives more than  a clue of why. A challenge to the vice-president, were it to have come from a white male (from any white, more likely) would not have been "well received by women and people of color within the party."  Finney wouldn't acknowledge it, but a challenge even from a white female would have been problematic. 

This severely narrowed the range of possible alternatives to Biden, which would make Vice-President Kamala Harris the odds-on favorite were the President not to seek a second term. Top Democrats got their preferred candidate, even though nearly everyone suspected she was nowhere near the individual most likely to defeat Trump.

If it makes Cillizza and others feel better, they can continue to blame the November, 2024 loss on Joe Biden. If it impels them not to challenge the prevailing wisdom of the Democratic Party that an individual's value is to be determined in part by the inherited characteristics of race and gender, even better. Ignoring reality can be satisfying to oneself, though destructive to a political party.

 

Share |

Show Some Self-Respect

He's not even President yet, and the submitters are submitting to Donald J. Trump already. This is fitting from one of the duo which went hat in hand, sans recording machine or witness, to Mar-a-Lago to chat with President-elect Trump 

Mika Brzezinski: "after we had our meeting with Trump and a lot of people said 'You said all these things about him and then you met him!' Yes and yes. Two things can be true at the same time and you still can be very concerned...you should never stop trying for civility and… pic.twitter.com/4nPjiIjYs2

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 11, 2025

The first pilgramage for the couple to the Trump resort and residence in Palm Beach County took place in June, 2017, after which

MSNBC Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski was "bleeding badly from a face-lift" while at his Palm Beach, Fla., resort for New Year's Eve. He also described her as "low I.Q. Crazy Mika."

The president sent a pair of tweets aimed at Brzezinski and co-host Joe Scarborough, whom Trump called "Psycho Joe,"

In response, GOP senator Susan Collins of Maine tweeted in part "we don't have to get along but we must show respect and civility."

Jen Psaki, MSNBC talk show host and former press secretary to President Biden, on the same show on Friday demonstrated that she is as unserious as a pundit as she was effective in her previous role.

Jen Psaki: "The American public is not waiting for someone to lead them out of fascism. That is not what the American public sent us a message about. They're waiting for people to listen to them and actually engage with them in their communities about what they want from the… pic.twitter.com/Hb8VK5Fsry

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 11, 2025

Whenever a Democratic pundit purports to tell us what message voters were sending and does not include "they didn't want Kamala Harris," there is smoke being blown up our rear ends.  Admittedly, fascism is not the most important issue for voters, especially when a former Biden Administration employee wants to close her eyes and do a Sergeant Schultz impersonation.

We don't know the full context of Psaki's remark, so "they're waiting for people to listen to them and actually engage with them in their communities about what they want..." may make some sense. In his previous job, Psaki was skilled, as she was expected to be, at going on and on without saying anything definitive. However, elected officials habitually communicate- by newsletter, in person, or on traditional or social media- with their constituents. It's highly unlikely that Psaki explained what "engage with them in their communities means," though it sounds a lot likely a tactic that Donald Trump assiduously avoided on his way to being elected twice.

Psaki doens't believe the public cares about fascism, and it appears she's not perturbed about it, either. Less comfortable is former chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who has said Trump is "fascist to the core" and "the most dangerous person to this country." Slightly less critical is retired Marine Corps general and Trump chief of staff John Kelly, who has maintained Trump "certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure."  But then Kelly, unlike Milley, hasn't been threatened with execution by the former and future President.

Civility! On Sunday, after the Special Counsel had resigned two days earlier afte completing his final report, Trump tweeted on Truth Social

Deranged Jack Smith was fired today by the DOJ. He is a disgrace to himself, his family, and his Country. After spending over $100,000 on the Witch Hunt against TRUMP, he left town empty handed!

Donald Trump plans to prosecute his political enemies. (Probation or a fine will not be an option.) Others will be threatened with worse. That should be enough to focus the mind of journalists and others. Michael Steele, a frequent contributor to Morning Joe, was too polite to run down the lady on the panel with him. However, he had enough with Scarborough:

 

Share |

Podcaster's Populist Prescription

James Carville has spent the better part of the last few weeks arguing "woke" was responsible for the resounding defeat of the Democratic Party in this election cycle. In one instance

Carville said what "killed" the Democrats in these elections was a "sense of dishonor" among the electorate, part of which, he said, "was the unfortunate events of what I would refer to as the woke era."

"We got beyond it," he said. "But the image stuck in people's minds that the Democrats wanted to defund the police, wanted to empty prisons...it created a sense of dishonor."

In another, in which Carville delivered a similar message, the veteran party strategist denounced Jon Stewart's take on the election. In turn, Kyle Kulinski noted

So in other words- in other words- Kamlala and other Democrats ran the platonic ideal of the non-woke Democrat campaign. But yet, they're still saying that wokeness is the problem. It's not- kamala, as I pointed out a thousand times- Kamala nevr mentioned race, Kamala never mentioned gender, Kamala never mentined LatinX or trans people or political correctness or cancel culture. She didn't mention any of that. She ran on freedom, she ran on patriotism, she repeatedly stressed that she'd represent all Americans. She ran right-wing on the border. So in ther words, the Democrats do exacctly what people like James Carville wanted them to do and then he's like "well, you should have somehow done it more like I wanted you to do it even though you did it exactly like I wanted you to do it."

Kulinski emphasizes that Kamala Harris ran it their way. As with most other Democrats, she did not run a Frank Sinatra "I did it my way" campaign. She ran as the ex-prosecutor who would blow away anyone who broke into her home and would "focus... on porotecting women and children from violent crime." . As "the president for all Americans, she would usher in an "opportunity society" available to Democrats, Republicans, independents, and everyone who admires the post-partisan patriotism of a Liz Cheney

The sitting vice president didn't run a "woke" campaign, nor did more than one or two Democrats outside of a very fewin  extremely safe congressional districts. (Think a Rashid Tlaib-like district.).  Regrettably- and unfortunately, understandably- neither Kulinski nor Carville acknowledges that the Vice President did not need to run a "woke" campaign.

Harris became the vice presidential nominee, thereafter vice president-elect, in 2020 because she is a black woman. In 2024 she was elevated suddenly and swiftly, though with concern from Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and a few other leaders- to the top of the ticket.  She is a black woman who, deservedly or otherwise, became the party's nominee without any potential candidate opposing her. She was the embodiment of the possibility of overcoming racial and sexual (or gender, if you prefer) obstacles to achieve a position and status few others, and no black women, have.

She didn't have to go "woke" and didn't, and neither did virtually any other Democrat who lost. Kulinski understands the theme a Democratic presidential candidate (and ones down-ballot) could have struck when he explains

So in other words, you need to counter the immigrants and trans people are the problem with "no, it's the financial elites, it's Wall Street, it's the billionaires. They're the problem. They've bought the government, they've rigged the government. That's why it doesn't represent you anymore. That's why we don't have a higher minimum wage. That's why we don't have the PRO Act. That's why we don't have higher taxes on the wealthy. That's why we don't have universal health care." That's the argument.

Voters are justifiably disgruntled and believe the deck is stacked against them, rigged in favor of some groups at their expense. The key for Democrats is to give voters an alternative narrative without undermining their own support among the groups essential to the Democratic coalition. They include ; the black community; the LGBTQIA community, the de jure boogeyman of conservatives; and legal immigrants, whom many people believe are taking jobs others should have, benefits they don't deserve, or are diluting their own vote. Or all of that.

The Democratic Party is identified in the public mind with these groups. Yet, without their support, the Party is dead in the water. Democrats must identify with widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo across ethnic, sexual, economic, and geographic lines. Otherwise, voters will continue to respond to  Republicans who want them to punch down at ethnic minorities, the poor, or even other middle-class which many are wont to do.  If Democrats can focus on those financial elite-, on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, and elsewhere- they'll be on the right track while on the left track. 

Share |

Progressive? Not the Campaign

I hate to agree with a journalist so anti-Israel that on Twitter he occasionally veers into anti-Semitism. However, Mehdi Hasan has heard enough of an emerging narrative and has no more- well, you know- to give. He remarks

Donald Trump winning the election was bad enough. But Democrats and much of our "liberal media" are now trying to blame their defeat on "the left, on prossives, on wokeness is just doing my head in. "Harris defeat is a stining defeatt for the left" was the hadline in the Post. "When will the Democrats learn to say no?" was the headline in the Times. A former Hillary Clinton advisor popped up on CNN to say the Democratic Party is being held hostage by the "far left." That's the new narrative- progressives lost Democrats the White House; Kamala Harris' losing campaign was a left-wing campaign. Are you fucking kidding me? This is gaslighting of Trumpian proportions. There was nothing left-wing about Harris.

Actually, there was one thing left-wing about Harris, who maintained amidst shifting positions that her principles had not changed.. It was her and most resoundingly not her campaign. Hasan continues

I mean, the centrists literally got the presidential candidate they wanted- a tough on crime prosecutor who bragged about owning a gun and spoke about her love for a "lethal" military. A candidate who famously told migrants "don't come" to this country and during the one and only presidential debate, attacked Trump for not backing a biparisan and very draconian border security bill. The idea that progressives got the campaign they wanted and then lost and so the left is now discredited is so ridiculous, so dtached from reality, so demonstrably and obviously false that Ican't believe I'm even having to sit here and rebut it.

The Democratic nominee ran commercials touting her experience as a prosecutor.

 

In the debate with her opponent, she boasted

So I'm the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings. And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported (but) Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said kill the bill.

And in her closing statement, Harris stated that she was committed to "sustaining America's standing in the world and ensuring we have the respect that we so rightly deserve, including respecting our military and ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world." 

Hasan continued with

"It was the wokeness and it was the cultural stuff." No. Harris barely sid anything about transgender rights. She didn't utter the term "Latinx" during the campaign, either, nor did she ever mention the words" defund the police." Stop lying. And oh, by the way, the year when people were talking about defunding the police was 2020, not 2024, and Democrats won in 2020, just saying.

Even in 2020, very few Democratic officials or politicians uttered the phrase "defund the police," though in the years following, many Democrats (most notably James Carville) would use the term to denounce unnamed Democrats who allegedly had advocated it. Further, criticism of police by the left- and by the center, which joined in- focused on harsher treatment by police of blacks than of whites. And I would bet that at the time- before the pro-police backlash against the left, very few of these currently disparaging "defund the police" progressives even questioned the prevailing narrative that blacks were getting a raw deal.

But times have changed and it's now open season on the progressives whom others, who at the time were on board, claim were all in "defund the police." Finger in the air, anyone?

The "cultural stuff," writ large, did play a role in the outcome of the campaign. However, it is impossible to determine to what extent it mattered, especially because that door swings both ways. Moreover, it was intrinsic to handing the nomination to Kamala Harris, who had the upper hand in getting the party's nod because she had been vice president but faced zero public opposition because had she been elected, she would have "made history" as the first black female president.

After Biden's withdrawal from the race- but before Harris was nominated- the vice-president skipped the speech to Congress of Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu to address the national convention of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., a member of the "Divine Nine." Harris herself is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, also an historically black (and apparently currently segregated) sorority. However, this event took place after President Biden had announced that he would not seek another term but before Harris was nominated, thus avoiding most backlash while reinforcing her base. It was a shrewd move by a politician emphasizing her roots in the black community while maintaining a distance from the militaristic and failed Prime Minister.

Yet, Hasan is correct that Harris de-emphasized that cultural stuff  There was very little from the campaign about transgenderism, about the candidate's gender or ethnic background, or a general defense of equity or diversity.  Nor did many- if any- of the suddent, convenient critics of wokeism suggest in 2020 that perhaps designating Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee, likely to become almost the heir apparent to Joe Biden, on the basis of her race or sex was unwise.

Harris, female and black or bi-racial, was the living embodiment of wokeism the critics attack. However, that was Kamala Harris, who is what she is. It was  not her campaign, which was pro-institutional, emphasized bipartisanship, and eschewed ideological radicalism.

Hasan continued

Look, it's as clear as day. Harris did not run a left-wing campaign. Shje didn't run on Medicare for All. She did not run on student debt relief. She didn't run on a Green New Deal. And she didn't break with Joe Biden on Gaza.

At the debate, the Vice President declared "well, first of all, I absolutely support and over the last four years as vice president private health care options. But what we need to do is maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act." She commented "and the plan has to be to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, not get rid of it." That's not such a bold stance in favor of a program which as of March was approved by over 60% of the public.  If we were hoping that would be coupled with denunciation of a system in which health care- thus health- is up to the discretion of private insurance companies, well, that would have been a little progressive. Can'thave that.

And Democrats, most notably its recent presidential nominee, no longer utter the term "Green New Deal." That is so 2019, and reference to it is even more uncommon than to "justice," hardly mentioned since the heady days of 2019-2020.

Hasan added

So when you sy she ran left, what on earth are you talking about? This is a presidential candidate swho campaigned way more with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban than with AOC and Shawn Fain, who listened more to her mother-in-law, the chief legal adviser of Uber, than to Bernie Sanders. The truth is, in 2016 and again in 2020, the Democratic establishment wanted to block Bernie Saners, an actual leftist, from becoming their nominee. And in 2024, due to Joe Biden's stubbornness, they didn't even have a contest- just a coronation. So look, the centrists, the moderates, got their candidate in every election in which the Republicans nominated Donald Trump: 2016 Hillary Clinton, 2020 Joe Biden, 2024 Kamala Harris. And they lost to Tump two of three times. And now they're going to blame the left for that? No fucking way."

Harris promised to appoint a Republican to the Cabinet and form a bipartisan council of advisors on policy. This should be the most enduring representation of the campaign (well, along with this and this). Whatever its net effect (to be determined), this may have been less the Harris-Walz campaign than the Harris-Cheney campaign.

Clinton was more moderate than Sanders, Biden more moderate than Sanders (or Warren), and Harris more moderate than- whom? The Party establishment, as Hasan noted, prefers the moderate candidate. However, even more so, it prefers the establishment candidate. Clinton and Biden were establishment- and so was Harris, loyal vice president to the President, even to the extent of defending Biden, his cognitive ability and overall health when most of the country had serious doubts.

There was another factor, one ignored by everyone, but most significantly by vilifiers of the woke, who would strengthen their case if they didn't elide it. In our more liberal/progressive days labeled "America's original sin," it is now avoided like the plague. Nominees Kamala Harris is a black woman; Joe Biden, pushed forward by Representative James Clyburn; Hillary Clinton, spouse of the individual once only half-jokingly referred to as "the first black President."  (The word "black," recognized a s a color,was not capitalized in those largely pre-politically correct days.)

And the presidential race of 2016. Initially, Hillary Clinto was supported for the nomination by more black Democrats than was Barack Obama. Once Obama won the Iowa primary- thus proving that whites woould vote for a black man for President-  the Illinoisan emerged as the favorite candidate of blacks. The rest, as is often said, is history.

That may seem off the point, but isn't. (Classic John Oliver: "The point is....") The soul-searching goes on, with "progressives" and "progressivism" taking incoming fire. Kamala Harris did not run a progressive campaign,  and had she won, her detractors from the right would have rightly denied that she had. If their beef with the left is that she was defeated because of the identification among voter of the Democratic Party as "woke," then they need to step up and be more specific. That they fail to do so, and refuse to acknowledge that the nominee herself was a bad choice, indicates that Mehdi Hasan is not only right about the nature of the presidential campaign but that the critics will offer no alternative..

"The ‘moderates’ got *their* candidate in every single election in which the Republicans nominated Trump: 2016 Clinton, 2020 Biden, 2024 Harris… and they lost to Trump two out of three times. And now they’re going to blame *the left* for that? No f*cking way."

My rant: pic.twitter.com/VzRcqbm5cT

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 27, 2024

                                         HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Share |

Needing a New Eyeglass Prescription

Well, of course Bill Maher's comment, uttered during the main segment of Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, doesn't make sense. Whites didn't want to sit next to blacks because of race or color and in some cases believed they were superior. Some liberals don't want to sit next to Trump voters because of a difference in values, a lesser number believing the vote a reflection of a deficit of character. Significant difference.

This week Bill Maher likened liberals not wanting to sit with the Trumpers in their family at Thanksgiving to "not letting certain people sit next to you on the bus" and showed a picture of Rosa Parks and the more I think about it, the whole comparison makes no sense.

— Touré (@Toure) November 25, 2024

Sometime during a meandering convesation which began at 2:14 of the Overtime segment, Donna Brazile stated "it's time folks, We know how to lead. We can build a future for everybody." 

Who is "we?" "We" was not a choice on the general election ballot. It was the nominee herself, and therein lay the problem. Andrew Sullivan, who does not like Kamala Harris, nevertheless endorsed her in what he called "an anguished but emphatic endorsement" (free subscription required). In the exchange which began at 4:05,  Sullivan (mirroring James Carville, by the way) stated

Next time, you have an active primary where a candidate can prove her worth and not just be stuck in and nominated at the very last minute because you have a dotard running you wouldn't fess up to.

The choice of noun, as Maher recognized, was "unfair" but Sullivan at least was making better sense than Brazile who, trying to get a word in edgewise within the crosstalk, responded.

Well, first of all, first of all, first of all, we had a primary, Kamala and Joe. Joe and Kamala did win enough delegates. Fourteen million people participated in it. And we should not disenfranchise those Americans. So-

Officially, Joe and "Kamala" won the delegates. However, "Kamala" won none as the presidential candidate. Rather, Ms. Harris became the nominee only after, and only because, Mr. Biden dropped out.  Relatively few people are persuaded to vote for the presidential candidate because of the running mate.

Nonetheless, Brazile- without cracking a smile at her reasonably good attempt at humor- actually maintained "she was a good, strong candidate" and "I can put my glasses on and I can still tell you, I can see a leader when I see a leader."

That would be her imagination. Though Kamala Harris may have been a good President, she struck too few people as a leader. Maher stated "well, I think people think that a woman leader has to overcompensate a little toward strength and people are drawn to strength. Look at Clowny- I mean Trump."   "Secretary Clinton" does not project strength; neither did "Kamala."

Brazile suggested that "one hundred seven days" is insufficient time for a presidential nominee. Justifiably, Maher responded "one hundred seven days was more than enough time. That's a stupid excuse in my view, that it wasn't enough time... She was actually doing fine after the first few months."

Better than fine, even. Harris' campaign was inspiring and impressive. The candidate, though, left a lot to be desired and in the end, "Clowny" convinced enough voters that four years with Kamala would be even worse than four years with himself. As Maher and Sullivan understand, that should be sobering

  .

Share |

Reality Ignored

It's time to face reality. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen, as reflected in the following tweet from this misguided auhor.

This election result isn't about Dem messaging.

Their messaging during the campaign was pitch-perfect in any other iteration of America. It was about helping the middle class, lowering taxes for the average American, continuing with sound economic policies to cut rising grocery… pic.twitter.com/djEWDJGMEW

— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) November 18, 2024

With Kamala Harris having run an exciting and efficient campaign, Pavlovitz is correct that "there is no messaging that can overcome prejudice and ignorance."  Prejudice and ignorance are endemic to the human condition, and the number of black males and, especially, Latino males who voted for Donald Trump is stunning.

Nonetheless, there are many factors which led to the horrific result in the presidential race and racism and misogny are not the two most significant. (Lack of education is a different sort of thing and a whole other issue.)

Of course, there is not "some perfect Democratic candidate." Regrettably, though, Kamala Harris was nearly as far from a perfect candidate as is possible.

Perhaps the Democratic Party (or presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden) should not have selected a candidate who had responded to a 2019 questionnaire from the ACLU in such a problematic way.

Harris was asked whether she would "champion legislation to provide fair and achieval paths to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants." She stated "As president, I will prioritize immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million plus people living in our communities." The American people would have preferred "I will prioritize securing the border," even if it had been followed by a "however.'

Asked if she would "commit to ending the use of ICE detainers," she replied that she would do so and bragged that "as Attorney General, I issued a bulletin on December 4, 2012 informing all California law enforcement that they did not have to comply with ICE detainers." That is quite a boast for an ex-prosecutor, thus an ex-law enforcement officer.

And then, of course, there was the big one- as pertained to the presidential election. As a matter of policy, it is virtually irrelevant because these situations occur very rarely. However, Harris' perspective was skillfully exploited by the GOP this fall. The ACLU queried

As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so? 

The then-candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination checked the "yes" box and explained

It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.

Unlike some of the other answers which at least represented good policy, this is a bad idea. And Senator Harris should have realized that at some point in a general election campaign this would come back to haunt her. And haunt her it did, when she was caught on video reassuring the LGBTQIA community of her commitment:

   

           

Yet, given her oppponent, the Vice President still had an excellent chance of claiming the presidency. And she appeared in the best possible venue, one which included only as interviewees only supporters of hers and audience members poised to applaud enthusiastically a candidate on the precipice of becoming the first female President of the USA. An entire cheering section, in miniature a replica of the huge rallies she handled expertly.  And then, this:

 

                       

It's awkward when a Vice President is confronted about whether she or he would do anything different than has the incumbent President.  For Ms. Harris, it should hae been, as characterized by questioner Sonny Hostin, a "layup."

Moreover, it's a question she had to know she would be asked, if not on The View than elsewhere. And it turns out that she was:

             

This failure to prepare wasn't about racism, misogyny, lack of education, or even the campaign. It was about the candidate. The candidate wasn't the only reason for defeat of the Democratic nominee. However, it was a major reason, and failure to recognize and acknowledge that is an exercise in self-delusion.

Share |